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PRESENTATION COPY FROM THE AUTHOR TO HER ILLUSTRATOR, warmly inscribed in ink on the free endpaper: "For my darling Hilary—My God ... can you ever believe it ... Isn't it wonderful—Oh Hilary—I love you Kay and ME ELOISE." When D.D. Dixon (later Ryan) introduced her neighbor Hilary Knight to singer Kay Thompson at The Persian Room of The Plaza Hotel in 1954, little did any of them know what an extraordinary phenomenon would be created in Eloise. It had been a long time since a writer and an illustrator were in such harmony. Hilary Knight proved to be John Tenniel to Kay Thompson's Lewis Carroll. Originally published "for precocious grownups," children immediately recognized Eloise as one of their own and took her book to their hearts. (Thompson was known to scour New York's bookstores and take Eloise out of the children's sections and put it with the adult books where she insisted it belonged. Of course, once she left, the clerks would put it back!) Eloise is now considered a timeless classic. Despite Thompson's pleasure with the overall result, changes had to be made in later printings. In referring to her mother's lawyer Eloise revealed on p 51, "Here's what he likes Martinis Here's what I like Grass." When it was later suggested to Miss Thompson that "grass" might be misconstrued, she changed it to "Dandelions." Mr. Knight later redrew the foldout of the elevator on p 13 by adding D.D. and John Barry Ryan Jr's two boys on the ground floor as elusive Greta Garbo in a big floppy hat strides by; he also put his parents on the third floor. Miss Thompson never liked her picture on the back dust jacket so it was eventually removed from subsequent editions.

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